A Loon in Bear Country: If Oskar could talk… he’d probably still be yelling at me.

Okay, Jenny just found this online. We took part in Harlem Shaking at Fur Rondy and apparently one of the cameras was right behind us. Jenny is the white/red/orange hat, I'm the grey/brown/white hat, and Dan is the brown/orange hat and has Oskar in a carrier on his front. Yea, so that happened: Click Here

We were able to get some wonderful church folk to watch Oskar yesterday so we went on a hike in Kincaid Park. It was wonderful. A bit scary at times because it was a little slippery and steep, but it was still a good time. I hadn't been able to hike over there yet, so I got to see new views/mountains. Dan had been there many times hiking with friends and doing the Tuesday night runs in the fall. I also got to test my winter boots, and so far they have been worth every penny. I wear them quite frequently, but walking down the street isn't much of a challenge for them. Enjoy some pictures:

I am holding a plant that I grabbed for stabilization. It broke.

We conquered a pile of sand.

So did Dan.

I’m not really sure how the whole process works, but apparently Dan received approval to speed things up, so he will hopefully be able to start looking for work in the fall and hopefully start a job soon after he graduates. This is exciting. Hopefully since he won’t be entering the field with so many people he will be able to find a job that is a good fit. The tricky part is that we don’t know where he’ll be rostered, I think that’s the right word. So we could be sent away again. Hopefully they consider the fact that they sent us to Alaska and hopefully I have a job that will help keep us in the Twin Cities, but really, we won’t know anything until it happens. Me, the planner, does not find this acceptable, but I am dealing, or trying to at least.

Jenny and I went to the mall the other day sans Dan and Oskar. They were having a native art fair and Jenny wanted a souvenir. We both found some excellent native water colors that we’re pretty excited about. The one I got Dan and I subtly makes fun of how white people get sunburned so easily. I thought it was appropriate. We also got to see the skating rink all up and running. When Dan and I visited in the fall we saw that there was a rink, but it wasn't in use. Now it is, and there were some pretty good little kids gliding around out there. It was kind of like Skateville where there is a direction of traffic and loud music. It looked like fun.

Oskar has been acting a bit weird lately. Extra crying and fussiness and not eating quite as much as he usually does, I guess that was until this morning though when we had a marathon feeding session again. One thing that I have found particularly frustrating is that when he gets up to eat at night he doesn't really wake up. This was fine before, but now he just screams his lungs out in his sleep. It is both annoying and deafening. Also, since he isn't awake, one would think you could soothe him back to sleep, and I feel that’s what I should try to do. It doesn't work though, and he just gets more upset which makes it harder for him to calm down and eat, which he eventually does with great gusto, so that indicates to me that I shouldn't try to soothe him without eating because that’s what he needs. But then everything says to start making him self-soothe at night starting about now. I wish he could talk and that he could understand me. Then I could explain the situation to him. On the upside, he is really starting to enjoy bath-time. He was crabby yesterday when we got him in the tub he seemed to have a pretty good time. I was curious to see how much he has grown, so I found his first bath photo and compared it to a more recent one. I know that I've posted one of these before, but it is super funny to see them next to each other. Not only because of how big he has gotten, but how much his personality has developed as well- and you can see every bit of his attitude.